Finding My Footing: Eleven Years in Baltimore, MD.

 In 1998, I was living in Portland, Oregon with relatively few friends, 13 hours from my brother, and 3000 miles from my parents. I was going to school full-time, working part-time, living in an apartment with a roommate I hardly knew, and holding out hope that my ex-boyfriend would come back to me and willingly continue our relationship. I spent many a night on the phone with my parents crying due to a broken heart, which was made worse by a lack of support and an ex who continually fanned the fires with sporadic phone calls and requests to meet up periodically. 

Therefore, I was excited when my parents declared their intention of driving across country to visit me that summer. However, that joy turned to panic and a bit of chaos after a particularly heated conversation with my ex, resulting in my impatience with heartache and loneliness. Three days before arriving in Portland, I informed my parents that I was done with it all for the time being, including Portland. In the course of a week we packed my apartment and headed east on an adventurous cross-country journey. 

When I left Portland, I had every intention of returning. Baltimore was meant to be a temporary solution to my problems. If someone had told me that I would meet my husband and live there for 11 years, I would have scoffed in disbelief.

Baltimore is both an interesting and colorful place. The city is divided into neighborhoods, each with their own personality. In Baltimore stereotypes come alive before your eyes. Though a big city, it feels much more like a small town. You can’t go to the grocery store without seeing someone you know, and everyone is either related by birth or marriage. Baltimore is an incredibly Catholic city with an extensive private school system. When people ask where you went to school, they are referring to your high school, not your college. Every summer the city empties and the population flocks to Ocean City on the Eastern Shore, together. People born in Baltimore rarely leave, and if they do, they often return to the city to live. People either don’t change or embrace change very slowly in Baltimore. Baltimore is steeped in tradition. Because my California upbringing was so different, it is not surprising that in the eleven years that I lived there, I never really found my footing.

Within months of moving to Baltimore, I met my husband. Raised in the Baltimore area, a product of the private school system, my husband was, in many respects, a typical Baltimorean. He was raised in a conservative Catholic family, was working at his high school, and had no desire to leave the Baltimore area. Though I was in college building my own group of friends, fitting into his world was, at times, like trying to fit into a foreign country. Not only was I not from Baltimore, but I was a liberal, Protestant Californian with the continuing desire to move back to the West coast. 

Upon graduating from college, I had every intention of moving back to Portland. However, my husband and I were in a seriously committed relationship and I had to make a choice between the West or him. I chose him.

After several interviews, I received a job teaching at a girls’ Catholic school in Baltimore City. It was here that the difference in values between my liberal Protestant upbringing and Baltimore Catholicism became glaringly clear. I was not part of the Baltimore community, but an outsider who was asking for change where change was unwanted. I barely made through the year. 

When I took a job at one of the few secular private schools that focused on experiential learning, I thought I had found my people. However, I soon learned that I was not a liberal as I thought. The interim principal and I interpreted and approached experiential learning, as well as education, differently. I believed you studied a subject first and then experienced it later to further enhance knowledge. She was of the opinion that sitting in a field of flowers was all the experience one needed to learn all there was to know about flowers. I believed in raised hands and listening ears. When she taught, her classroom was a free-for-all. She wanted me to eat, sleep, and breathe the job, like she had done for many years. Once again, I found myself asking for change where change was unwanted. I knew I was finished when, at the end of the year, she expressed her desire for me return, if I could explain to her, in writing, how I was going to better fit into the school community the next year. 

Professionally, Baltimore was a bust. I had a hard time finding teaching jobs because I was a newcomer to Baltimore. I had not been raised there. I had not attended the private schools in the area, and I was related only to my parents, who were also newcomers to the area. I had neither the right connections, nor the right relatives. I wasn’t Catholic and could not embrace Catholic doctrine. I asked for change, where change was unwanted.

Though my eleven years in Baltimore were not without challenges, they also were not entirely wasted. I fell in love with and married my husband. I met several of my best, lifelong friends. My first daughter was conceived through IVF and born in Baltimore. I encountered colorful individuals. I experienced and learned from my mishaps and mistakes. As a result of my time in Baltimore, I changed, I grew, and I learned to let go of expectations.

The Woman By The Well: Learning To Love And Be Loved

          I grew up in a fairly religious household. We attended church each Sunday, went on mission trips and church retreats, participated in youth group, and read the bible before bed each evening. Growing up, my favorite New Testament story was “The Woman by the Well”. In this story, Jesus is resting by the well of Jacob when a Samaritan woman approaches. Jesus asks this woman to retrieve him a drink of water. Surprised that both a man and a Jew is speaking to her, she questions Jesus’s motives. Jesus replies by saying, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. But whoever, drinks the water I give him will never be thirsty again.” He then requests that she retrieve her husband. The woman answers honestly by saying that she has no husband. Jesus exclaims, “You are right in saying you have no husband. The fact is you have had five and the man you are living with now is not your husband.” Jesus then reveals himself as the messiah the woman knows is coming. At this point Jesus’s disciples return and the woman returns to the village, declaring the presence of the messiah, Jesus. 

            I would make my mother read this story to me over and over again. Not only did it capture my attention, but also my heart. At the time it fascinated me, though I was always unsure as to why. It wasn’t until last night, while lying awake at 1am, that it struck me. “The Woman by the Well” may seem to be just a story about accepting God as Lord and savior, but at its core is actually a love story. Not a love story in the traditional romantic sense, but a love story, regardless. Jesus takes it upon himself to not only acknowledge a Samaritan and a woman, but also engages her in meaningful conversation. He accepts the truth of her situation without judgement or disdain. In doing so, Jesus is saying, “Love and you shall be loved!” 

            As a child, it was easy to love, easier to accept love in return. However, as an adult it is often difficult to love others, and even harder to accept that I am loved despite my flaws. I was never a child free of fear. However, I did fear less. I remember how light and unburdened by responsibilities I once was. I remember my first love and the ease with which I was able to love and accept love in return. I remember the pure simplistic joy that love produced. Alas, time, age, and circumstances have resulted in a harder, more fearful, and burdened me. As a result, relationships, and the love that exists within those relationships, have become much more complex. Life has given me a version of myself that is both familiar and foreign, making accepting love challenging at the best of times and unthinkable at the worst of times. 

            I imagine that the Samaritan woman felt the same. Her life was, I am certain, not as she imagined. Five failed marriages must have taken a toll on her self-esteem. Life must have disappointed her. She may have even been disappointed in herself. Jesus offered her the uncomplicated, innocent, faith-filled love that one experiences as a child. He asked her to cast off her burdens to once again discover her lighter, less fearful, and hardened version of herself. Despite her circumstances, Jesus was declaring that she was worthy not only of loving, but of being loved.

            Each day I struggle to accept this version of myself; one so completely different, not only from the wide-eyed child I used to be, but also from the adult I dreamed I would become. I don’t always feel worthy of love. Accepting and loving others for their flaws can also prove difficult at times. They say with age comes wisdom. Each day is a quest to learn, to grow, and to love and be loved.